FantasyFantastik

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 00:50:44 GMT

Jen and I got married in Maine on July 9. it was beautiful and green and family oriented and full of birds. It was really really gorgeous.

We're not gonna talk about the part where Jen and I and several of our guests had the stomach flu. Lets just look at the pretty pictures.

and...

We are freakin' adorable. Even with the stomach flu.

So that wedding was gorgeous, but that wedding wasn't legal. But YAY, NYC had just legalized same-sex marriage a few weeks before Wedding the First. When we got home, we had another wedding, a legal wedding. Since we had just been through the big traditional wedding, we were happy to do something a little more low key and out of the ordinary for Wedding the Second. I saw a tweet about the popup chapel event in central park and threw our name in to be part of the event. And so we were married again, in the middle of manhattan. I truly do HEART new york, so this was really exciting.

And we were still adorable.

and SEXY

I love jen and I love getting married!

I'm going to do a more organized post about all the hard work we put into Wedding the First and the cute things we made, cause I was pretty obsessed with googling "wedding birdhouse escort cards" for a while, and I'd love to see my own wedding birdhouse escort cards come up on future searches.

Ohhhhhh yeah blog, I'm BACK. You brought me a wife! I love you!

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 16:19:51 GMT

I havent blogged in about a gazillion years. Here's what's up:

I'm getting married this week! In Maine. Pretty pretty.

I'm getting married later in July! In New York. LEGAL LEGAL.

My job is sometimes ok, it's pretty cool when I'm in high powered meetings.

My job is sometimes boring, it's lame when I'm like, all I do is throw out your old trash papers.

We're moving in the fall. Staying in Inwood, at least that's the plan.

Soooo. EVerything's all different, but basically, sameawesomesame. :)

moving

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 18:17:07 GMT

In recent years, my posting on LJ has grown infrequent. I'm just not as willing to spill the details of my personal life as I was in my early 20s. Plus, my life is comparatively boring - less random makeouts, more taking the dog to the vet. Who wants to read that?

I still do love LJ for some of friends and communities it connects me to, but I have been messing around with new solutions for my blogging needs. I've decided that I really want to have less of a personal blog and more of a critical one - I want to fangirl out and apply my half-baked, queer theories to popular culture. So I've started a new blog called Queer for Theory.

I hope you'll come over and read it. I transferred some of my old posts over there, ones that already did have this critical lens. At the moment its a lot of posts about television, because the teen girl tv I love has been so GAY this week. But movies, books, comics, theater will be covered too. Basically, I'll continue to consume media and overanalyze it in a way I hope is entertaining and edifying.

That sounds so boring, damn. But really, it'll be fun. Girl of the Week trophies will be awarded! The patriarchy will be undermined! And it's pink!

boobs live

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 12:45:40 GMT

I got tickets to the Glee Live tour. I was kind of feeling shady about it, cause I figured it's gonna be all tweens and my motivations for wanting to go do include wanting to see Glee Boobs Live...but one of my classiest friends said he went last year and it was awesome. And then, I was on the subway yesterday listening to Firework (Katy Perry version, not glee version) and it hit me, not unlike a firework, that yes, teens and tweens will be at Glee Live but given the fact that Glee is the gayest thing to ever air on televison, many of them will be...GAY T(W)EENS!. And then I got superpsyched because I really want to see today's little queers in their natural habitat. This makes me feel like I should have gotten tickets to the Long Island show, because if my high school is any indication, Long Island produces more gays per capita than any other place in the United States...but the Jersey venue where I have tickets has slightly more seats, which can only mean slightly more gay. Which means SLIGHTLY MORE AWESOME.

I'm actually not only idly interested in the childrenz. I've been writing a lot more lately and I'm setting myself some serious goals for my production of fiction. I've realize that I don't suck, especially at writing YA. I also realized last year that YA is all over the map, from awesome stuff to the shockingly bad, and there's a real lacuna when it comes to anything abut queer chicks. So I'm aiming for that, and it's honestly been easier than I thought to get some work flowing. So I have something to write about that I am excited about and amused by and some people to write for, and I'm feeling motivated. Plot continues to be a problem that I suck at solving, but I've found some strategies to help me address this, and I know that if I work more, I'll find more ways forward that work. Its great, writing is like a fun game now. Hope that will last for a while.

What else? I've been working out...like a BOSS. I go to the gym at least 3 times a week, do a lot of running, some lifting. This week someone from the awesome ladies book club that my friend Sara started mentioned The Shred, Jillian Michael's workout video on itunes, and I started that too. In part this time for attention to fitness is a function of my un-employedness. But the wedding is coming up, I need to go try on dresses at the end of the month and that helps focus my attention more than a little. I'm not particularly vain, but of course I wanna look bangin'. If I want my wedding to be known for anything, I want it to be the copious tears everyone shed at the amazingness of our love, and the blinding hotness of two brides coming down the aisle.

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:12:40 GMT

So I've been completely avoiding my live journal. I want to write, but there's just a lot going on. Wedding plans, unemployment, all kinds of fun.

I'm going to try to get back in the swing of updating though. It's nice to have a record, its cathartic to write things down. It's funny though, now that everyone's on the internet all the time, it's so much harder to write than 7 or 8 years ago when I first started this blog. I think one of the things I have always liked most about the internet is anonymous new friends, expression without intimacy. Now everyone's all always up in your status update. Since I'm looking for a job, the professional repercussions of that are on my mind.

I actually created a secret twitter account so my evil twin can say all the things I want to say but don't want to get in trouble for. Catch me if you can.

Rule, Brittana!

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 15:21:34 GMT

Spoiler Alert - I'm gonna talk about all Glee episodes up to and including Duets (2.04). Also, I'm gonna kind of get on a lite queer theory kick.

It's well established that Glee is the gayest thing on two legs these days. Its fabulous, its great, it's educational for the masses and I cry like a baby over Kurt's dad fierce and protective love for his out gay (gaygaygay) son.

But Glee is also giving us a far less out, far more complicated queer story in the relationship between cheerleaders Brittany and Santana. As a former teen girl who liked girls but didn't know what to do with that (and, I can't lie, as a current woman who likes girls in cheerleading skirts) I'm getting fascinated by the depiction of their connection, and by the fan response to it.

Just so we're all on the same page, a little recap. Brittany and Santana are cheerleaders, which in the Glee world means they're cool and popular. They're inseparable. Brittany is unintentionally hilarious, dim but sweet. Santana is quicker and far meaner. She's arguably the bitchiest teenager on the show, but until recently she has never been mean to Brittany, and always stuck up for her and used her bitchiness to get Brittany what she wants.

They always sit together. They often hold hands or lock pinkies. They cuddle each other in public.

Thus far, all of this is well within the realm of what girls can do while being just good friends. Needless to say, the reaction would be markedly different if two good guy friends were snuggling up in class.

So lets get to the sex. Brittany claims to have hooked up with everyone in school "girls, boys, even the janitor..." Santana is slightly more choosy, blatent about using sex for social status and personal pleasure. To that end, she's got an on and off sexual relationship with Puck, a school jock and popular bad boy.

Brittany and Santana also hook up with each other. It's clear they've done this publicly, for guys' attention or to get things from guys. One plotline centers around them asking Finn to take them - together - out on a date. Santana breaks it down for him, "You buy us dinner, we make out in front of you. It's the best deal ever." But its also clear that a)they have taken it beyond just an attention getting makeout session to a more developed sexual interaction, b)they both enjoy their sexual connection and c) there is an ongoing and private element to it. In one episode when Santana says "Sex isn't dating." Brittany adds "If it were, Santana and I would be dating." Santana seems surprised that Brittany mentioned their sex to others. They others blink a little but let the comment slide past.

So, B and S have a romantic friendship and an ongoing sexual relationship. But they're not read as gay. They're not getting slushied in the hallway or having heartfelt chats with their parents about their sexuality. They're somehow allowed by others and by themselves to have these connections within the existing heteronormative high school social system.

Exactly why that is is debatable. Having written a whole big thesis on related themes, and having been a lesbian for years and years, my understanding is that it's really easy to intentionally or unintentionally misrecognize female homosexuality. This is both because sex is, for the vast majority of people, defined as penetrative sex, and because women and girls are often affectionate with each other without being sexual. So unless girls or women work very hard to make their connection clear as a romantic AND sexual one, people can take it in one of many ways, as we see here in the Brittana relationship - anything from admiration to good friendship to ploy for male attention.

And this isn't only an external misreading, its an internal one as well. Brittany and Santana seem not to think too deeply about their connection because when they do,they have a hard time sorting out exactly what their feelings for each other might signify. This is definitely analogous to my personal coming out experiences; I long time coming out because although I had intense romantic feelings for and attraction to girls and women from the time I was about 12 years old, it took me until I was about 19 to really understand that those were sexual feelings as well and then a few more years to act on them. I wasn't particularly sheltered and I'm definitely not stupid. But female desire is not externally signified, and without any basis for comparison within my own body and mind, it took years for enough of my own responses to aggregate to the point where they were undeniable and linked to my understanding of what culturally signified a lesbian identity. Whereas I talk to my guy friends and they're like, "Yeah, I knew when I was 8. I got a boner watching He-Man."

Along those lines, I think this isn't necessarily just an issue of female homosexuality, but an issue about recognition and ownership of female sexuality in general. How and when do straight girls know they're straight? Is it before or after they have sex? A relationship?

Anyway, on Glee they recently took a step to do what it took me so long to do - connect Brittany and Santana's sexual and romantic relationship to lesbian culture. Brittany seems to be beginning to recognize that her feelings for Santana are more than friendship, and that she feels attraction to other girls and women (Brittany Spears and Coach Beiste's boobs). During a scene where the two were shown kissing on Brittany's bed, Brittany asked Santana if she'd sing a duet with her, Melissa Etheridge's Come to My Window. Santana recoiled from the possibility of making such a publicly lesbian statement. She denied having any feelings for Brittany, and insisted that she only hooks up with her because her preferred sexual partner, Puck, is locked up in juvvie. The refusal saddens Brittany, who then tries to make Santana jealous by pairing up with a boy for her duet instead. Santana's confusion and jealousy, and confusion at her own jealousy becomes evident in the rest of the episode. Meanwhile, Brittany is just plain lonely.

I have no idea how they'll resolve this. These two girls could end up leaving this relationship behind and living entirely straight, they could come out in rapturous lesbian love with each other, or they could identify as bi, regardless of where their relationship ends up. It seems like Brittany is at least bisexual, with strong lesbian leanings and Santana could be straight even though she maybe sort of loves a girl. The fact that all these options are on the table is very queer.

But the funny thing is, where everyone knows about the gay male issues on Glee, only queer (female?) viewers seem to see and respond to the depth of the queerness in the Brittany/Santana relationship. From my admittedly limited exploration of fan sites and message boards and lesbian media outlets, young lesbian/bi and queer girls and have been reading the Brittany/Santana relationship as Brittana from their first hugs and cuddles, all along, a legitimate entity on its own that they can easily recognize as simultaneously friendship, romantic relationship and sexual relationship based on their own experiences and attractions and desires. Meanwhile, straight viewers and straight media outlets don't seem to have noticed much at all, or if they have, its usually read as a sham connection, created for male attention only. Even when they were depicted making out alone, a british paper covered it as covered it as "a reason for the lads to be gleeful."

So there's three levels of misrecognition for Brittany and Santana - internal, external diagetic (within the world of the show) and external non-diagetic (outside the world of the show). That's complicated queerness, and even though its sort of awesome that its being smuggled in on prime time TV, I think it would be interesting to see what happens if at least one of the characters starts to push back on that system, and attempt for her female/female desires to be correctly recognized. Although it seems that this is what Brittany wants, its a tough endeavor, and maybe they'll just drop it all and make Brittany go for the wheelchair kid instead.

I certainly hope not. But in the meantime, thank God for fanfic, where you can recognize anything any way you damn well please.

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 13:37:58 GMT

Started a new job last Monday. Enjoying it very much so far. Doing some reference desk, responsible for some instruction, and working on a big archive project for the college archive. The archive project is the most interesting part, but also the toughest. I've been talking to some of my colleagues from school, and they gave me some very helpful ideas...I've been working on putting them together into a useful solution. I can do it. Right?

My job is at a catholic college in a very tree lined part of brooklyn. I dig it. My commute is long - but I kind of like that. Sometimes Jen and I ride the train together, we have coffee and a nice morning chat. Or when I'm on my own I can read a lot, or write a lot. Its a good easing into the day process time.

This all sounds so boring...I guess I'm just in a period of establishing a routine, after all these years of such a bizarre work schedule. There's still a little of that, cause the library is only part time. But I do feel like things are more settled now for me, which I'm glad about. I feel like I can bring some focus back to other parts of my life, like writing, like organizing my home, like my social life.

Yesterday I had a bbq for my birthday - it was a gorgeous day and the sangria flowed like...wine? When I blew out the candles I wished that everything would always be like this. But I'm not afraid to tell my wish because I know that it can never come true like that. Everything will never be like this again.

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The Kids are All Right

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 15:12:47 GMT

We went to see The Kids are All Right last night with my my and co. I was really intrigued by this movie for several reasons - 1. I'm a lesbian. I'm a lesbian in a long term relationship. I'm a lesbian in a long term relationship trying to have children using anonymous donor sperm. So this movie, about lesbians in a long(er) term relationship and their children conceived using anonymous donor sperm and what happens to them was of interest to me. 2. Julianne Moore is cool. 3. The media was nonstop talking about it - or at least the liberal bullshitters I spend my time with were - Slate, NY times, NPR, Dan Savage, After Ellen... Almost everyone loved the movie, but almost everyone had something to say about the...problematic plot development that I'll discuss under the cut. So of course I was going to see the movie, I have plenty of thoughts about all depictions of lesbians in popular culture, and this movie seemed to be sparking some debate about the ideas I spend so much time with. But I was sort of cringy about it at the same time, with themes so close to home, I felt more trepidation than usual heading into the theater. The fact that I was actually nervous about seeing this film just shows how uncommon it is for me to watch a story that depicts my life or something like it in a public/family setting.

The movie was good. The beginning was my favorite part. You meet the members of this family - Joni, smart, pretty, blonde girl, getting ready to head off to college. She's playing scrabble with her friends, being a cool nerd and internally working on what to do about liking her guy friend. Laser is younger and less conflicted at the moment, out skateboarding with his asshole friend. They crush and snort some sort of prescription drug, I didn't catch what it was, maybe ritalin or something, and then they roughhouse around and get yelled at by the friends dad. Laser looks on with interest while his friend gets smushed by his dad in retaliation. Jules is just around, being. She's both pretty and normal looking, cause Julianne Moore is like that. She's the one who is home to presumably make and then sit down to dinner with the kids. Nic rolls up late for the meal, bringing an air of judgmental bravado home with her, to protect and harass her family.

They eat a lot of meals in this movie. Some of the later scenes show you how broken things become by how fragmented and lonely the meals get. Then, the kids silently pick at their cereal, eating at the counter, alone together. Or, when things hit rock bottom, Nic just grabs a banana for breakfast and leaves with out speaking at all. But this first meal, before anything changes, this first meal was my favorite.

It was awesome because its not like they were some perfect family. But they were a pitch perfect depiction of a family, cause families are always not perfect. Laser is still a little jittery from whatever he snorted, his moms are wondering what is going on with him, his sister is bugged by his jumpiness. But its not like some big blow out comes, and they never do find out what he did that day. Its just that they all sit there, getting on each others nerves, but loving each other, used to each other. I don't even remember what they talked about at that meal. I just remember laughing and cringing in equal measure, cause they were really getting the lesbian relationship dynamic. In this small, really inconsequental conversations, the intense devotion, reasoning and processing behind the construction and continuance of this family was evident. Oh my god. The way Nic reminds Joni to write her thank you notes...And you can tell that Jules sort of doesn't care, but also agrees. That is dinner with your lesbian moms.

After dinner, Laser asks Joni if she will call and find out who their donor is. He really wants to know, but he can't call until he's 18. Joni is not quite as curious, which is interesting, because all the reviews acted like Joni had a burning desire to find out herself. Its quite clear that she doesn't, but her brother does.

Joni snoops around and finds the files on the donor. Another crintresting (cringy+interesting) moment for me. I have spent some time with those donor questionnaires. I have looked at those donor baby pictures and wondered who that boy became. I have tried to create a meaningful concept of a man from a handwriting sample, and you can sort of do it but you know you're making it all up. It's very obvious that you don't know that guy. You know about that guy, but you don't know that guy. And maybe you don't want to. Personally, I don't want to, but if we're successful with donor sperm, I know my children might, one day.

I know what I think and what Jen thinks about why an anonymous donor is the best option for us to create a family. But I also always wonder if I'm doing my theoretical future children a disservice by choosing this path. And then I tell myself, I'll do my theoretical future children many disservices before I'm done being their mother, why quibble about this one? But watching Joni sneak and look and decide to call... I wonder why she had to sneak and do this in the dark. These kids knew they were conceived using an anonymous donor, why didn't their parents talk to them about the possibility that they would want to find the guy, once that option became available to them? I'd love to see a story where the family is all in on the donor search. Or what happens when the donor doesn't want to see you. Point being, this is just one trajectory of this anonymous donor story, and I wish others were more easily accessible.

Whatever, eventually, the kids meet the donor, Paul. He's alright. He's a little louche, a little sweaty, into organic vegetables and fucking multicultural ladies. The kids meet him for lunch, without telling their moms. Laser is unimpressed, he wanted a more manly man, someone who respected team sports. You can tell he's got an idea of the man he himself wants to be, informed by his mothers, especially by Nic's uptight, responsible, breadwinning ways, but also a little bit by Jules' nurturing openness. Even though he's been rebelling lately, Laser wanted to see a man like that, a man more like his moms - cleaner, smarter, more upstanding. Joni's intrigued though. She needs to loosen up a little, she knows it. And Paul is nothing if not loose.

Eventually, the moms find out about Paul. The kids want to see him again, so Nic says, ok...but only after we meet him. Which I think is reasonable and fair. He comes over for dinner and you can tell Nic is trying to learn about him and care, for the kids' sake, but you can also tell she hates him and wants him to disappear. Jules gets along with him a little better. He invites her to landscape his garden, and she agrees. Nic thinks this is a spectacularly bad idea, and of course, obviously, it is.

This movie is kind of Jules' fault. She fucks the donor. She didn't have to. And you know why she wants to - Nic keeps leaving her high and dry, her kids are growing up and leaving home, she doesn't have a career, she's lonely and directionless. Its clear that she's realized the fact that she's slid into a passive role and she doesn't want to stay there, Nic doesn't want her to stay there either, exactly. Jules wants to seize something, wrest control of her situation and contribute to the family in a new way. It just sucks that she chooses to do it by fucking Paul and contributing to a storm of bullshit for her wife and children. It was the easiest thing, the thing that came along. But that was shitty Jules.

It was shitty the first time, and it was shitty the 2nd and 3rd times, and it was shitty that I had to watch Jules get banged in various positions by Paul for like, a solid eighth of the total running time of this lesbian movie.

But...it was shitty in a new way. It sucked to see Jules fuck this guy, not because you could see that she liked him better or wanted him more than she wanted to be with Nic, but because you could see that she didn't. She's using him to work out her issues and she knows she's hurting Nic and her children and she doesn't want to, and you reallllly don't want her to. You kind of want Paul to evaporate, just like Nic did. The audience is put in the position of protecting this allegedly "nontradtional" family. The man/woman relationship is the threat to family here. So that's progress in shittiness. (For more on this, AfterEllen has a really thoughtful piece about the "lesbian fucking a man" trope in this movie)

Nic finds out, in an amazingly excruciating dinner scene at Paul's house. Annette Benning really rocked it as a soft butchy lesbian. Drama ensues. The kids find out. Jules is ostracized by her family. And everyone, everyone, everyone is really done with Paul.

And then, unexpectedly, I felt bad for Paul. He shouldn't have fucked the lesbian, its true. But its not really his fault Jules came on to him. And its not his fault he fell in deep deep like with the idea of having a family. Its only when the family has problems that he finds out he's not actually in it. It takes him a while to get it though. He calls Jules and invites her to make a go of their relationship, now that the secret's out. Her incredulousness that he actually thought that could happen and her quick, clear rejection of the idea is awesome and hilarious for me. But it was sad for Paul.

Then they all have to work it out. Laser dumps his assholey friend. No one liked that kid, Laser realizes he never really did either. Now he's more clear about the kind of man he wants to be and the kind of man he doesn't want to be and this asshole who made a cast out of cardboard and duct tape is no longer a desirable companion. Joni gets drunk and deals with that dude she likes. I don't know, Joni's subplot was far less interesting to me than Laser's. She clearly has a ways to go in her journey to adulthood, and sorting out the kind of men she wants in her life, and how she wants to relate to them. Because she's older and a girl, her steps are more complicated and nuanced than Lasar's and they just didn't have time to do them justice, even though the actress who played her, Mia Wasikowska, clearly had thought about all of these things and did a great job with the time she had.

And Nic and Jules...Jules feels like shit. She's so so sorry. And Nic is so so hurt. But they're still a family. They drive Joni to college together. They love their children together. They love each other together. And like Laser says, they're kind of old to break up and start over. So you feel that they're gonna work it out. Because they made a commitment to each other, and because they created a family together and because that commitment and that creation is their life, and its not easy or desirable to walk away from that, even if it is difficult and complicated to figure out how to stay.

That's what I loved about this movie. It was about how these women worked at making their family and negotiated and re-negotiated their roles within that structure. People make fun of lesbians for over-processing everything, and yes, it can get ridiculous. But that's also one of the things I like most about my relationship, one of the opportunities being in a female female relationship affords is that you know its a negotiation of power, ongoing and open. If you have a partner you love and trust and whom you feel is an intellectual equal, that process can be really fun and sexy and challenging. In this movie, the negotiations took a fucked up turn, but in the end that's what it was about - how do you become the family you want to be? How do you become the person you want to be? You work hard at it, you maybe make mistakes, you keep working hard at it again. The straight guy in this movie didn't have to work at it, he just was himself. Which was easy and appealing, but in the end is depicted as much less fulfilling and much more lonely, and even the straight boy came to appreciate this and become a more active participant in the process of becoming himself. In this movie process makes something less than perfect, but something lovely and important, an active, activated life. The family that you really meant to have. The person that you really meant to be.

I realize that might seem a little self-congratulatory. But considering this is one movie out of all movies ever that allows me to congratulate myself and how I think and how I live, I think I get to revel in it for a moment.

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 20:44:56 GMT

I've started meditating. I've done it before, once or twice in a group, guided situation, and then a few times sort of half assed using a podcast to attempt to get my flying anxiety under control (which sort of worked). I am trying now to make it an every day thing, just like 15, 20 minutes a day.

So its been three days, and I am feeling good that I have successfully taken time to meditate every one of those days. Its difficult, but I am getting somewhere. The first day I was just like, woah my ideas are making crazy shapes in my mind! They are all small and wiggly! This is hard! But I got my shit together and eventually things did calm down a bit. Yesterday I hardly had any time, but I gave it a shot anyway. It wasn't the most successful attempt, but I am glad I took the time out anyway. Even 10 minutes of quiet with no internet, no phone, no mass transit, no other people is a huge deal for me these days.

Today I finished took care of the laundry and the emails and everything I needed to address, and then really took the time to get down to business. It took a while for me to settle down of course, but I did get into a more meditative state. When I got there though, I had some complicated feelings. One of the feelings was triumph and excitement, look at me, I'm totally doing it!!! But that was distracting of course. I tried to pass through that and focus on breathing. And then...I just felt...a lot of feelings. I teared up. I wasn't sad, I haven't been sad. But I was...in that moment when I was finally quiet, I really felt overwhelmed. By nothing in particular and by everything in existence.

I'm not trying to be new agey or anything, I'm just trying to be healthy and relax. But I'm intrigued by what I apparently don't know about how I feel.

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 01:06:48 GMT

We went down to DC/MD this weekend. My cousin eric got married on Saturday - congratulations Erin and Eric! Jen and I had to bring the dogs, so we ended up staying in a dog-friendly hotel in DC.

On friday we visited Jen's friend Laura and her family. She and her wife have two adorable daughters, ages about 3 and 6 months. The older one is super girly, her closet was literally overflowing with pink dresses and Disney princess garb, total cuteness.The baby was just all eyes and chompy mouth, such a sweetie face. We had a lovely time, and some revamped Dominos pizza with them. Then we headed back to the hotel, and Jen's friend Frank came by, bringing with him Jen's friend/ex Jennifer and her wife, and wife's sister. Surprise surprise, they were pregnant too! Twins! It was lesbian mom extravaganza day.

I have to admit, I had moment. We've been trying for a while, and it was just...it was just a lot to see other people already so far down the road adhead of me, when we've been planning this and working on this for like, over 2 years now. Still, we're in a hiatus period of TTC at the moment, and I'm not only OK with that, I've been really happy and relaxed and satisfied with our lives at the moment (job hunt nonwithstanding). But that doesn't change the fact that I do want to get pregnant soon, and I do want to have a baby, soon, and yeah, it was just a moment. I almost gave in to it. I thought about going to the bathroom to get weepy. But I just didn't find the moment to excuse myself, and in a moment the moment passed. I had a lovely time, and tasty fried chicken and that night I had a dream, and I don't know what it was about, but I woke up so happy.

Saturday morning we got up early to get ready and leave for the wedding. The wedding was in Maryland, about an hour away. The church was so cute. We said hi to all my family, and met Erin's family. Pretty traditional catholic ceremony. The bride looked lovely. The groom looked nervous at first, but then proud and happy. Then on to the reception. Snagged some mimosas for me and Jen. Got down to talking Lamarckian evolution and epigenetics with my cousins. Love being part of a weird and smart family. I liked that the reception didn't have fixed seating, so we could go around and talk to everyone in turn.

After the reception. we spent some time with my family. They all went swimming and we hung out by the pool and chatted. There was a square dancing competition at the hotel, and Jen got invited to join a square. She declined.

Back in DC that night, we found that the dogs had been good good girls at the hotel. We took them out for a long walk and picked up thai for dinner.

I really like DC. I feel like its a city I could live in, which is kind of a huge deal for a die hard new yorker like me. Apparently I'm rude there though, asking counter people to multitask... but whatever, I like having an edge.

Saturday night we saw Frank again and met his boyfriend. Then sleepy sleep. Up this morning relatively late. Another long walk, cause I wanted to go to Teaism, which had been really good last time I was in DC. This time however, it kinda sucked and Jen was grumpy. We fixed her up with an egg mcmuffin to compensate for time lost. Checked out, got the car, hit the road.

It took forever to get home. At a rest stop Jen read my mind and brought me the fixins of a root beer float. We jammed to musicals, and the dogs were too exhausted to make much trouble. My mom, also stuck in traffic with my cousins, called and blared gangsta rap for us when we answered. We considered calling back with a response song, but we couldn't decide between Fiona Apple's version of Across the Universe and Rufus Wainwright's version of Across the Universe.

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 13:49:41 GMT

In grad school, parts I and II, I was definitely a queer theory perspective in the classroom, but I I really focused more on the sexuality aspect of that - mainly gay and lesbian visibility - than the gender concerns that are part of the same conversation. I touched on those issues, of course, they were definitely relevant. I mean, I was up on the conversation. But I don't think I fully understood or engaged. The depth of my exploration only went as far as my own experience. And my personal experience with gender is that I fucking love my gender. Women and girls fascinate and intrigue me, and I feel lucky and excited to be one.

But recently, a few things have contributed to an expanded interest in and understanding of gender and specifically trans issues. I'm moving into a library career (well, lets hope so), where i need to have a developed professional understanding of these things, not just have half baked grad school theory of myself and tangentially allow other perspectives to address me. Plus of course, these issues do effect me, as a woman, as a feminist, I should be active in conversations about gender. It all basically boils down to the fact that I need to keep learning about gender and trans issues so I can appropriately advocate, especially in professional circumstances. So, in the interest of advocacy and education, lets start the conversation.

There's a MARC field for gender. So this means that in a library catalog there is a spot to indicate gender, and the start and end period of that person's identification with that gender. Its a field for authority records, and i don't think it would appear in the OPAC. But nonetheless, what are the implications of requiring a gendered record in the catalog? I think the point of it was so that people who had ambiguous names, esp. ambiguous foreign names could be identified. And I'm sure that for some people who have transitioned, and have records in the catalog under multiple names, this might be a way to help collocate their items, while recognizing their transness. But what about for people who aren't out about being trans? How are catalogers to know someones gender? There's a spot in this field to cite the source of the gender info, but still...it seems like something that would more complicate the catalog than clarify it. What do other people think, either from a technical perspective or from a social one?

This idea of label claiming or labeling strays back over to the larger conversation about outness and queer visibility. I've heard from a few sources that the Lambda Literary Awards are changing their guidelines to exclude books by straight authors from consideration. I understand the urge to honor and promote books by out GLBT writers, but still, there's something hinky in the exclusion. What is someone transitioned and now lives a straight life? Their book doesn't qualify anymore, unless they come out publicly as trans? And with many people transitioning at younger ages now (which is a whole different issue that I'll get around to talking about sometime...), maybe that public identity has long been a straight one. I have seen in my own life that outness can be effective advocacy, but is it always the best advocacy? Is the concept of outness and the responsibility to be out different on the GLB side of the equation than on the T side? I think it might be, but like I said, I'm learning.

DC ALA NYC

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 03:38:52 GMT

I was in DC for the ALA conference last weekend. It was so much more fun than I expected it to be. I had a really easy time chatting with people, there was all kinds of exciting learning going on, I got free books, and got to talk about books and intellectual freedom and gay archives and generally had a giant nerd time. But everyone was a nerd, so I was cool. Nerdly case in point: book cart drill team championships. (I think they could be better, faster, more competitive.)

I came away with a lot of great ideas to apply to my job search, and the professional blog I am developing. Not to mention a bunch of new twitter friends. Librarians are a tweet festival.

DC was a swamp the entire time, I was just sweating sweating sweating every time I set foot outside that conference center. Also, there's no food there. I didn't realize it, but New York City has food every 3 feet. If you get hungry on the way to lunch you can stop at a food cart. If you get hungry on the way to the food cart you can stop at the other food cart and buy a banana. Or a cupcake. Or a suspicious meat popsicle to eat on the go. On the subway in the middle of the night, kids randomly show up and sell you candy. On the platform, a lady appears bearing churros. But there, you had to actually travel to the food and sit down to eat it. Even in front of the national archives, with a huge line of people out the door, waiting in the heat, thirsty thirsty, there was only one guy thinking about maybe selling some ice cream out of his van. It wasn't like I was hungry or anything, I just wondered where all the food went.

But overall, DC was a great time. Ryan was my traveling companion, and we hit some gay hotspots. We found a bar that played showtune videos for a while and it was like Marie's Crisis if Marie's Crisis took place in this century.

I missed Jen a lot, but yay, we're going back to DC in a few weeks, tagging on to a wedding we're going to in Maryland. I really do like that town. Its no NYC, but I enjoy the aggressive professional backbone you get down there. At the drag show, a queen pulled a boy up on stage to tease him. "What do you do for a living?" The twink replied, "I make weapons."

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Sat, 29 May 2010 12:01:14 GMT

We went to Maine last weekend to look at wedding venues and really get the wedding off the ground as a whole. I expected the trip to be stressful, but really it was all quite lovely and turned out to be a much welcome mini vacation. I think what made this possible was the fact that Jen and I had done exhaustive research already and had identified vendors we really liked. Its maine, there's not like, 10000000 of everything, so among the ones we had to choose from, we already had a cream of the crop in mind.

First thing we did when we got there was eat cake! We really liked the looks of the cakes at the Black Bunny Bakery, so we went to meet the baker and pick up some samples to try.


cake!	cake 5 minutes later!

We tasted white cake with raspberry filling, red velvet cake with white chocolate filling, strawberry cake with coconut filling, yellow cake with chocolate ganache, lavender cake with white chocolate and lemon cake with lemon chardonnay and raspberry filling. As the photographic evidence attests, we loved almost all of the samples, and in the end we did decide to go with this baker. The final selection of cake/filling will remain shrouded in mystery for the moment.

	A hard day's work done, we headed over to the piano bar in Ogunquit, The Front Porch.
	They have all these murals there that made us think of our friends... Jen with Andrew and TK
	Kevin (with beard and sexy boots) and Brian Healy (lounging with PanAm bag) on the beach

I know not everyone will be able to come in the end, but I think our friends would really like Ogunquit, and have a fabulous time if they can make it up for our wedding.

The next day we went to do some photo stuff (not as fun as CAKE), and then to look at our leading venue, Clay Hill Farm. We knew from our research and email exchanges that we thought this place looked good, could work with our budget, and seemed to have good food and gay friendly staff. In person, it was lovely.


it was set up for a wedding	marrying gazebo
	A wilder part of the property.

We talked to their coordinator and walked around the grounds a bit. The coordinator was really into our gay wedding too...it was nice to have such enthusiasm and support. Maine recently voted down gay marriage, by a narrow margin, everyone there knows about the issue, especially the wedding market, who are like, PLEASE GIVE US YOUR GAY DOLLARS.

We did end up looking at some other venues we had heard of, but this was by far the nicest of our options. Before the weekend was out, we held a date, and yesterday I sent them a deposit.

Another day's work done, we went out for the most delicious lobster sushi of all time at Black Sushi House.


oysters!	Jen's vegetarian roll	lobster california roll topped with crab and lobster

The rest of the weekend involved a lot of chilling. We went to our favorite giant old timey bookstore, hit the outlets in Freeport, and regularly stopped in to check the "ends bin" at the fabulous candy store in ogunquit. It was a little cold for the beach, but we hung out in the hot tub at the B&B. It was a french canadian three day weekend, so the town (and the hot tub) was over run by french canadians. The french canadians in our b&b were celebrating Giles' birthday and they were party animals.

We went out to one of the clubs one night, but the DJ was busted and couldn't get his shit started. We went to a drag queen Judy Show, and that was better. I eventually went one dirty martini over the line, and Jen took care of me (and video-ed me dancing in the street). I love her.

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Tue, 04 May 2010 02:40:01 GMT

I am so horrified and depressed about the oil spill. Honestly, I can't even think about it too much or learn about it too much because it upsets me so greatly, and sends me into an anxiety spiral. So I stay away from the news but its on my mind and its so scary and so sad. Just demoralizing.

I have no major point in posting this, except to express my feelings. I hope other people are having similar feelings, not because I want people to feel so sad, but because I think that's a human thing to feel right now. Well, I guess I do want people to be disturbed, because although we cannot change what happened, perhaps we can take this as an indication that we need to seriously reconsider the way we operate.

I'm such a hypocrite, I know. I freak out over disasters, but terrible things happen to the environment every day, those issues should concern me too. To say nothing of the non-environmental troubles that plague our world - AIDS, starvation, abuse. When I think about the state of the world, I'm so troubled. The problems seem so drastic, its hard to know how I can change anything.

Sometimes that's why I like living in new york so much. The natural world is so sublimated and has been so for hundreds of years. The problems are familiar to me, and I know enough about the history of the area to understand them in a historical context. That makes it possible to fathom the idea of solutions, or evolution to current issues. Or at least see things cyclically, and not be constantly worried that its the end of days. The suburbs on the other hand, make me nauseated, because there's still shreds of nature clinging to the grinding teeth of development's hungry maw....

Ok, I think I've hit an obvious low point now, don't you?

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 04:55:26 GMT

I think Justin Bieber songs have drugs in them.

Last week, I saw him on SNL with Tina Fey, and then I couldn't get that Baby song out of my head. This weekend I broke down and downloaded it and then suddenly it has taken over my brain and I'm like googling his tiny ass and watching old you tube clips and shit. And I'm a grown lesbian! I'm not surprised tween girls can't hardly take this kid. The swoopy bangs!

Boy teen idols are a weird zone. They have to be all romance with almost no threat of sex. But there does have to be a tiny tiny hint of possible sex buried somewhere, or else the girls wouldn't scream so loud. So its like the imminent threat of a soulfull kiss right after buying you ice cream. And the young girls catch fire and hardly know why.

Which gets even more interesting when you compare to teen girl idols, which sort of do the opposite. They have to be all sorts of sexual, covered by only a thin veneer of innocence. Hey Brit, whatcha up to these days?

I get the feeling that a lot of little lesbians like like justin bieber. cause he loves hoodies and button downs and girls with the same fervor they do. And that boy looks like a boi. (I'd link to "lesbians who look like justin bieber" here, but it gave my netbook a nasty disease.) He macks it at exactly the speed a teen lesbian is aiming at. I can imagine a confluence of wanting to sleep with a girly version of him, and wanting to simultaneously embody just that level of performing maleness.

I doubt gay male tweens feel any particular way about him, en masse. He's so girly. I'm sure they're headed for a real man. Older, more naked, less sweet.

Now that there are out glbtq...i...etc. tweens and teens, I'm looking forward to finding out more about the idols they latch on to. If I had time, money and an entrepreneurial bent, I'd totally set up a company dedicated to producing queer teen idols. It would be easy, because it would just be the same products, with a slight shift in message to reflect a different view of the desired self, and the desired other - romantic girly boys and naked virgin/whores for the girls, aggressively sexual manly men and divas with manly sized sexuality for the boys. Obviously that wouldn't do all things for all people. But I'm talking about a mass market queer tween/teen product, for those purposes, you can just mix and match the same old gender tropes. Get on it music industry, it'll be fun to watch.

People of all ages need to watch out for the bieber roofies though.

</div>

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 04:21:27 GMT

Today I was late to the archive because Jen's neck was seized up and all she could do was cry and writhe and say ow ow OW! I stayed home to take care of her in the morning, walk the dogs and get her seltzer with a straw in and make sure she got on the subway to the doctor ok. Poor sweetie face.

The afternoon was quiet, just archivey archiveness. Which I really enjoy, especially when things are stressful in other parts of my life, like they are right now, what with the wedding planning and the thesis writing (alleged) and the job hunting. And then yesterday and this morning, the sadness of Jen's ows. Funnily enough, while I worked I listened to a podcast about people who can't feel any pain. But the consequences of feeling no pain were so severely disturbing, listening to them made me nauseated. So I switched to the new Rufus Wainwright album, All Days are Nights. That was perfect. I made my rounds of closing tasks during "The Dream" and the rows of boxes and the dust and the creepiness were beautiful.

After work I went to this archivist's roundtable event at FIT. The subject was toy design, what materials might be in a toy design archive, how archives are used by toy developers, people studying toy design. This one student from the toy design program talked about his attachment to his ghostbuster's proton back, back in 1987. My younger brother and cousins had those and ghostbusted all the time and yeah, those were sweet toys, hefty enough and complicated looking enough to seem real-ish. Which got me thinking, do I have some toy talisman in my past? Of course I could say the nerd thing, the true thing. My favorite toy was books. OOh. you know what was up there though? That fuckin' Get in Shape Girl ribbon stick. I would toss a record on the fisher price and then just JAM with that thing.

Speaking of books, its been raining gay gay gay books on me for a week and a half. I'm on this awards selection committee and we're getting all our review copies of the nominated books now. I should be focusing on writing my thesis-y thing, but these shiny shiny teen homosexual novels are so appealing. I tore through two today. Now I have this lesbian vampire anthology staring at me. And a giant awesome Patricia Highsmith bio beckoning from the shelf. I flipped through to the pictures and Patricia Highsmith was a-freakin-dorable in her youth. Its intriguing to see this cute surly chick baring her perky boobs and then on the next page in a photo from 50 years later, she's turned into this old croctchedy with a ragged, ruined smoker's face and a dowager's hump. I cannot wait to read 800 pages of what the hell happened.

But I have to keep myself in check. If I want to graduate in ummm...a matter of weeks, I need to churn out some work and be quick about it. But its late tonight. Jen's zonked out on muscle relaxers. My academic legacy won't suffer too much if I sneak in just a couple of lesbian vampire tales before bed, right?

Gossip Girl

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 17:32:29 GMT

Since I'm super busy writing a thesis, looking for a full time job, working on a few group projects, working the 2.5 jobs I do have and planning a wedding, I thought this would be a great time to obsessively watch every episode of Gossip Girl. And yes, yes, yes, what a great time it has been!

I always meant to watch Gossip Girl. A year or so ago I caught the end of one episode where Blair was ratting out Georgina, and the big showdown in central park included the phrase "sold her polo pony for cocaine", so I knew it was something special, something to be savored. I didn't want to just dabble. I wanted to gorge.

Now that I am well underway (I'm at season 1, episode 10), I like it even more than I thought I would. Yes, there's the sordid drama that I was expecting. But its also quite clear that the real theme of the show is friendship - and all the sordid drama that being real, long term friends with someone can bring into a busy, changing life. Its never just being friends or not being friends, gray areas abound. Being friends with exes. Being ex friends. Sleeping with your friends. Being friends with the people you sleep with. Hating your friends. Befriending the people you hate. And then every once in a while, the glorious fun of being with someone you know really well and still liking them, loving them, having a ridiculous, giggly, time together. Friends!

I'm interested to see how these friendships and frenemy-ships evolve as the characters get older, go to college. I know in my life, the older I get, the more I have to work on friendships, the more i have to make sure to make time, and the time available is always too scant and insufficient. Its ok, there are other benefits to adulthood - paying less for rental cars, and a fulfilling relationship with a life partner among them. But sometimes I do miss my friends.

But back to Gossip Girl...does it stay awesome? Does it get awesomer? Am I headed for a dissappointment if I catch up with current eps? Cushion the blows for me people.

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:44:28 GMT

This is a dream I had last night, you don't have to read it, I just wanted to write it down.

----

I had a dream there was a scare that the US was under nuclear attack. At the time I was in DC. THere were warnings all over the radio and television, in the air. The warnings said to go home, go home as fast as you could. So I tried to get to NYC, but the only flight available ended up diverted to Denver because of a blizzard.

The dream then picks up in Denver, where I've been living for a couple of weeks. I'm living in a back room at a japanese/italian restaurant. There's a password protecting the door of my room, the password is green. I'm concerned about getting word to my family that I am ok. Old mail starts coming through, my family sent me a package of candy. Its all seasonal, but most of it is past season, like they went to the store and bought the sale candy from Halloween and Valentines day. There are just a few Easter pieces in there, a gesture for the upcoming holiday.

All my friends who are pregnant had their babies during this tumultuous time, and they look great and the babies are great. But the babies are too old to be only a few weeks old. They are a year old, a year and a half. And they are smart and fat and I love holding them.

KITTEH!

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:13:11 GMT

I found a kitty yesterday!

I was walking out of a tutoring session, and there were all these dudes milling around outside the construction site next door - some construction guys, and a random pedestrian. They were all surrounding this black kitten, who was meowing his head off. The guys were all somewhat concerned about the cat, who had apparently been wandering there and meowing for an hour. But none of them had the slightest idea what to do about it.

I had no idea either, but I scooped up the kitten anyway. He was freaked out, but he didn't try to bite or scratch. The dudes were all very relieved that someone had taken action, which I thought was kind of hilarious. I totally saved the day.

I wandered around the village holding the cat for like, 20 minutes, wondering what the fuck to do. I called Jen and she suggested I take the cat to our vet, get him checked out. Good idea. I got a box to put him in from a pet store, and we rode the subway to the upper east side.

A zillion dollars later, the cat was fine all along. They gave him some vaccinations, tested him for FIV (he tested negative). I thought about boarding him there, but that would be another zillion dollars a day, so I just ended up taking him home. He's living in our bathroom now, and on Saturday, he's going to live with Jen's mom in Connecticut. He's wary of his new surroundings, but in his calmer moments, he's very affectionate. I've never had a cat, so its been fun getting to know him.

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 19:33:09 GMT

Jen and I have been engaged for a while now, and we told everyone and we've been walking around talking about making wedding plans and everything has been about as non-secret as you can get. But I have to day, getting an engagement ring really took everything to a whole new level of serious.

If you're going to get an engagement ring, get it at Tiffany. They ply you with booze! I only had one glass of champagne, but the friendly salesman assured me that they had scotch, and all other likely spirits at our disposal, should we call for them. And you get a cute little strawberry shortcake petit four! And of course, shiny shiny diamonds.

I told Jen I didn't demand jewels of any sort, much less from Tiffany, but she really wanted to do this, and she wanted to do it classy style. In the end, really, it was a very lovely and special experience. I felt lady-like. I felt treasured.

We went last week, just a drop in, to check out ring styles. Then on Friday we went back to make the final purchase. Jen went ahead, to collaborate with friendly salesman on the price and size situations. She picked out three options, which were waiting for me (along with champagne and cute petit four) when I arrived a half hour later. I made the final selection, and since this is a lesbian fairy tale of course it was the one Jen had liked best for me all along. They sized it overnight and Saturday afternoon I was walking around, bedazzled.

I'm quite familiar with the concept of significant symbols, cultural shorthand that conveys meaning etc.. Seeing social interactions as performative is something that has always been my tendancy and is now just even more deeply ingrained, given the fact that I have a freakin' master's degree in that bullshit. But as much as I understand these things, or maybe because I do, I perform my life in an anti-performative way sometimes. Major events are not a big deal. I don't want to have to make announcements or be watched. Turns out...an engagement ring is a big ol' show.

Everyone's understanding of our relationship, our intentions, was immediately clarified. And this is for people who knew we were planning a wedding. People who've known our 6 and a half year relationship from the get go. It's great, I feel really wonderfully supported by all my family and friends. But its just funny/strange, you can explain and explain but flash a ring and everyone's like, ok, done.

Which is the point of the whole wedding. We know what we mean. And other people do to, as relates to their individual relationships to us. But going public is a whole different level of visibility and activation for our relationship. I KNOW all this. I KNOW this is why marriage equality is crucial and why is tragic that we're in the ridiculous state we're in this issue. But its very educational to actually feel what I knew to be true.

Is it gauche to post a picture? Is it activist? Either way, you're getting one.

totes ridics

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:40:22 GMT

Jen and I are domestic partners now. This means I can be on her insurance. This is great great insurance. This allows me to work part time and have crappily paid internships and go to school so I can change careers. Should we have a child, this would allow me to stay home and take care of this child for as long as I wanted to. And most importantly cover our children, immediately.

We are going to get married. Big party married, but also civil married, in Connecticut.

According to New York City, if you marry your domestic partner, your domestic partnership is automatically dissolved.

So, we'll be married in Connecticut, but not in New York State. Not officially married. And apparently not domestic partners anymore either.

The current governor of New York has issued a directive that says that New York State must recognize same sex marriage performed in states where it is legal. But this isn't a law. It hasn't really been tested. And a new governor could come in and issue a different directive.

So. Where does that leave my insurance? Would getting married actually uncouple us in New York? Does New York really think we're married? How married? How secure is that understanding? What could change it? When?

Jen asked her HR people. Of course they don't really know, because this particular case only applies to a few people at the moment. But they're looking into it. Jen's demanding a response in writing because she is fiercely protective and smart.

But doesn't this just make you go - WOW this is SO stupid? The nonsense half marriage quasi marriage, married here and not there is dumb and trouble making and dangerous to me.

People who know about all this - you know about all this already. People who don't, this is why same sex marriage rights are important - for practical, day to day protections for real people, real families. Things that are so mundane to everyone else are at the very least a huge hassle, and at the worst a terrifying ordeal that obliterates any possibility of security for your family. Right now we're at the hassle end. Because Jen is smart and proactive and a planner, we'll hopefully always know more about this end of the scale than the scary end. But you have to live paranoid and defensive. We can do it. We're smart, educated, brave. But why should we have to? We're smart, educated, employed, law abiding, tax paying. Citizens.

It doesn't need to be like this. There's a simple fix to this run around, this uncertainty, this dangerous, silly, waste-of-time, wrong headed nonsense.

Equal rights.

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:40:46 GMT

I'm in a bar, eating fries. There were way too many fries served to me, so perhaps it would be more correct to say I'm in a bar, trying not to eat fries.

I won't be alone in this bar forever, other people are coming. Celebrations will commence.

I've been thinking lately, that all I do when I write these days is write about me. And not that I'm not super important and wildly fascinating but in the long run, on (ironically) a purely selfish level, I think i'd rather look back and have some sort of understanding of cultural, artistic, political and social events and currents that make up my experiences, not just my emotional states. Or at least perhaps, to pursue an intellectual rather than purely emotional reaction to these elements.

I've been writing in a paper journal lately. Maybe thats why I've been allowing myself to whine and wallow. No one's looking. Plus I'm a little dispirited. We've been trying to conceive for a while now, and it hasn't worked out as well as we'd hoped. Which is to say, it hasn't worked out at all yet. So I feel a lot of things about that. But I see now that this can't be it. We're continuing to try, and I feel good about our future chances, so I can't get stuck in emotions about chances that have already been spent.

Plus, there are other things to attend to. The wedding we're planning. Other people's big gay wedding pictures that are so satisfying to contemplate. The fact that two good looking chicks in wedding dresses (without overdoing it) can be HOTTTTTT. Continued outrage over lack of equal rights for homos, old hat and exhausting as it may be. The job search I should be embarking on. My professional development as an archivist. Steampunk, and my confusion as to why people I see on a regular basis could care less about steampunk even if they knew what it was. Research that needs to be done about lesbians in the W.A.V.E.S.

I mean, I'm here, without a topic for the thesis I'm supposed to write this semester. Me. Without an idea to bullshit about. That's just unhealthy and proof that I need to work on relating to the outside world more frequently, and in more sustained bursts.

I did find out that 30 Rock is hilarious. People knew that though, right?

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 16:47:25 GMT

Alright 2010. Bring it.

We had a nice new year's eve. Tasty italian dinner with my family in brooklyn, then back to manhattan for champagne and beers at Brittany's apartment. Brittany is Jen's cousin, and she and her husband and child are always a fun crowd to mix with.

Their son, Aidan, is almost 18 months old and he's such a great kid. He's smart and smiley and *hospitable*. And he toggles through iphone apps like a pro. Seriously, watching him flick through his spanish flashcards on his mom's phone was really fascinating and fun. I you tubed it this morning, and there are lots of videos of 1, 1 and a half year olds using touch screen phones, choosing specific icons and scrolling through photos or flashcards. I'd love to watch more babies using technology.

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 15:54:14 GMT

Christmas was...

Well. It started off lovely, on the 24th I picked up the rental car. I had reserved a compact but they gave me a sweet ass Cadillac instead. Jen and I drove out to LI to see my dad, we had a nice lunch, we drove to my Mom's in brooklyn, had a nice dinner, watched The Grinch in hi def (the colors almost made me hallucinate - it was fabulous). Home, parked the car a couple of blocks from home (crucial point in the story), up to the apt, Jen and i did our own gift exchange and then to bed.

Christmas morning we woke up, leisurely started our day, and then around 12, went down to get the car to leave for CT only to find that the passengers side window had been smashed in. Nothing was taken, there was nothing to take, but clearly this was not positive. Turned out there were 5 or 6 other cars parked on that same block that had also been broken into. We called the cops. We waited around with some other people who were also frustrated and trying to drive somewhere for Christmas. The cops came. They took like an hour and a half to handle whatever it was they were handling and eventually handed me back my license and the car registration and said to pick up the report on Monday. We drove to Connecticut, two hours late, with plastic in the window, which was flapping around and making a hideous, hypnotizing noise. Jen sat in the back like Driving Miss Daisy, cause there was glass everywhere on the passenger's side.

And still, there were good things. Jen and I couldn't really talk, the window was too noisy. But we sang Christmas carols. And I got to watch her bopping around in the back like an adorable muppet head. So cute.

The novelty wore off after about an hour though. The incessant pounding, popping noise, the drab gray/white snow bleeding into a gray/white sky, the nothing nothing...I felt like we were driving backwards. Presents! I told myself. At the end of this there will be presents!

It was great to get to Jen's moms. Delicious appetizers. Lovely gifts. I was drained at the beginning of the visit though, and i passed out for a while. Drooled. Woke up for dinner. Onion soup! Cesar salad! Twice stuffed baked potatoes! I was livelier after all that.

After a while, we went over to Jen's dad's house, which was full of people, including many small children who ran in circles and shouted. They were cute, but the day had me verging on curmudgeonly. I was like "how is that fun?" and "Santa's not real."

Left CT about 9 only to head right into a driving, icy rainstorm. Connecticut loves dark, dark, windy, dark roads, so it was slow going until NY state where things were less icy and better lit. While I was snoring away at her mom's Jen had fixed up the plastic sheeting in the window with a shitload of duct tape, so at least we weren't rained on and things were quieter.

I was so glad to get home. So glad.

Sorry Christmas. You did not live up to the hype.

nerd post

ryndigoyen@gmail.com — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 12:41:37 GMT

I am looking on amazon to get ideas for a gift for a child. So I'm clicking around their catagories, trying to find some inspiration and I see that you can sort by subject (if toys can be said to have subjects). So I sort by "occupation" thinking I might find some cute toys about vets or something, and the number one occupation in kids toys appears to be...pirate.

I understand that pirate is now and was historically a way that people do make their living. But should we really be putting it up there with doctor and fireman? On american amazon at least, don't we culturally have it more in a mental category with king and knight? Those are also real occupations historically and currently, but are found under fantasy and scifi on this amazon system.

I wonder how amazon creates these subject headings. I'm sure they have some catalogers somewhere, but like, what are the standards?